US President Donald Trump’s second term has sent the global economy into a tailspin with a torrent of  tariffs announced on 2 April.

In doing so, Trump has reinforced the United States’ regional image as a declining, unstable and unreliable hegemon among Southeast Asian young people.

Young Southeast Asians expressed increasing doubts about US leadership before Trump’s re-election.  Pre-election focus group discussions we conducted with 33 Southeast Asian elites aged between 18 to 35 from six ASEAN countries working in the business, policymaking and civil society sectors expressed concerns about the United States. They highlighted the US administration’s Gaza strategy and Washington’s perceived lack of respect for international law.

Young Southeast Asians are an emerging  demographic group essential for understanding how geopolitics affects Southeast Asia. Young people are  a significant political force – as seen in recent elections in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. With the growing accessibility of information through social media, many young elites may already be influential leaders.

They also lamented Washington’s inconsistent and erratic strategy in Southeast Asia before 2024 and worried that a second Trump term would portend the return of a more isolationist United States. Young people were cognisant that a Trump-led United States would be more unpredictable than one led by former US vice-president Kamala Harris, despite recognising that half-hearted US engagement with Southeast Asia would continue regardless of the administration. Trump’s early policies would have exacerbated these concerns.

Trump’s  continued support for Israel stood out as an issue of particular concern for young people in majority-Muslim Indonesia and Malaysia. The majority of Southeast Asia’s youth was dismayed at the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Israeli breaches of international law, with 75% expressing that Israel’s response to the 7 October 2023 attacks had “gone too far”.

Washington’s rhetoric in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine under the Biden administration contrasted with its continued support for Israel’s actions in Palestine. This led to allegations that the United States was “hypocritical” as it had appeared to present a “higher moral standard” in its support for Ukraine compared to its support for Gaza. Trump’s backtracking on support for Ukraine has weakened the argument about double standards. But vacillating on its Russia-Ukraine position while maintaining support for Israel is unlikely to win over many Southeast Asian observers, given that the latter conflict remains their more salient geopolitical concern.

This dismay about the United States has led many young people to a preference for China. Except for Singapore, the Philippines, and Thailand, other participants from Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam picked Beijing over Washington when faced with a forced binary question – drawn from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute’s annual State of Southeast Asia  survey report. Participants in this smaller study spoke positively of Beijing’s  Belt and Road Initiative, despite being aware of potential threats to their national security and sovereignty from engaging with China, particularly in the South China Sea.

Compared to Washington, Beijing appears to respondents as a more stable and reliable partner in advocating for the  multilateral system, which  Chinese President Xi Jinping has emphasised. China’s image has shown a noticeable improvement. But it remains hampered by its  aggressive behaviour in disputed waters.

Older Southeast Asian respondents seemed  more optimistic about Trump. According to the 2025 iteration of the institute’s report, the United States was expected to increase its Southeast Asian engagement under Trump’s leadership, while trust in the United States to “do the right thing” improved from 2024.

It is plausible that the region’s elites did not fully expect that regional countries would become direct targets of the  Liberation Day tariffs as the data collection period was between January and mid-February 2025. Most importantly, Southeast Asia chose the United States over China as its preferred partner for strategic alignment after it broke with precedent in 2024 by choosing Beijing.

According to the survey, faith in Trump 2.0 largely hinged on US ability to “respect international law and its institutions and not undermine the global system”. Concerns included Washington’s potential foreign interference, its potential distraction by domestic affairs, continued support for Israel in the Gaza conflict and Trump’s “unpredictability and uncertainty”.

Though Trump 2.0 has expressed ambivalence about the fears expressed by Southeast Asia’s young people, the United States remains the region’s preferred strategic partner. But the gap between Washington and Beijing is narrowing. Washington’s trade with Southeast Asia trails behind Beijing’s,  the region’s top year-on-year trade partner. Beijing is the region’s top influential economic partner and leading strategic and political influence.

Given competing visions of US foreign policy in the Republican Party and Trump’s unpredictability, discerning the Trump administration’s grand strategy for Asia is a tall order. But Trump risks ceding further ground in the United States’ strategic regional competition with China. This ultimately does not serve the interests of protectionist China hawks nor traditional internationalist Republicans and risks destroying a largely positive regional image built up over decades. The US administration’s efforts to erode its regional standing could linger in the minds of Southeast Asian youth as they age and impact future US-Southeast Asia relations.

This article draws on the authors’ March 2025 study,  Current Perspectives on Geopolitics among Southeast Asian Youths_, published by ISEAS Publishing._

Republished from East Asia Forum, 24 June 2025

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations..